Publications Publications
We produce a wide range of publications from research reports to policy briefings, as well as our members' magazine, Clearway, and a monthly Policy Round-Up. Our Handy Guides provide practical information covering topics such as LSPs, Planning and local government. All our publications are designed to provide accessible and relevant information to help you get to the heart of what matters.
Don't know your Handy Guide from your Briefing? Read our explanation of what our different publications are.
This week we held the first of a series of seminars for our members to discuss the government's plans, the spending cuts and, in particular, the Big Society programme. The discussion, among people from frontline community based groups, was fascinating and, as you would expect, everyone was understandably nervous about the impact of the cuts. However, there was an overwhelming desire to want to believe in the Big Society vision and a belief that there was considerable potential for it to have a radically transformative effect.
On 22nd June, the coalition government published an emergency budget, setting out the government's spending plans and forecasts for the next 5 years. The government has said it wants to bring down public borrowing and eliminate the structural budget deficit in 5 years, and to achieve this by reducing public spending and increasing taxes - roughly 80% from cuts in public spending, and 20% from increase in taxation.
Everyone knows the government faced some terribly difficult decisions, but the Budget's impact is likely to place tremendous strain on the demand for the services of charities and community groups. For all the talk of ‘fairness' in George Osborne's first budget, an initial assessment appears likely to hit poor people very hard. Raising VAT, rather than raising income tax, is deeply regressive and disproportionately affects poorer households. The three-year freeze on Child Benefit, will affect lots of poor families - and let's not forget that around 1 in 4 children in the UK live in poverty.
Read our 'who's who' in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition cabinet.
On 24th May 2010 the Chancellor, George Osborne announced the first cuts to be made in their plans to cut public expenditure to meet the current budget deficit of £156 billion, resulting from government intervention into the banking crisis in 2009.
£6.2 billion cuts in public spending were announced for this year. 90% of the cuts were made in 10 of the 16 Government departments.
The latest edition of our online magazine, Clearway, looks at the issue of Social Finance. 